Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz squared off last night in their first and only Vice Presidential debate for the 2024 election. Many political analysts wondered if Walz could handle the pressure under the big lights since he’s virtually untested on that size of stage.
Walz started out shaky and awkward, allowing his nerves to get the best of him. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights in his first 2 minutes. Vance, on the other hand, had a solid start and was very poised and on point with his execution.
One of Walz’ bad moments came in the first portion of the debate when the moderators asked him what his relationship with China was like. Watch his response:
The CBS News moderators started the debate off foolishly trying to “fact check” JD Vance on a statement about migrants in Ohio. They supposedly broke the rules of the debate by doing so, and more importantly, continue this obnoxious behavior we’ve seen from moderators lately in debates. Vance handled it well and pushed back at them.
I was afraid the debate would take the same one-sided, Democrat candidate biased path that the ABC News debate took. But they did end up putting Walz in the hot seat.
Walz was asked if he supports abortion in the 9th month – an issue very unpopular with the American people and one that Democrats never seem to get questioned on in their support. That’s where we watched the most impressive dance moves of Walz’ political career. Walz carefully danced around the question, never actually providing the moderators and answer, even when they came back at him with the follow up.
Then Vance pressured Walz about a bill he signed as Governor that allows babies born from botched abortions to not receive life saving care. Previously, Minnesota law protected those humans. Walz signed a law to allow those babies to die. And then last night in the debate, he looked into the cameras and lied about it, replying to Vance that he never passed a law like that.
Here’s Action 4 Liberty’s write up when Democrats snuck the language into an omnibus bill in the 11th hour of the 2023 legislative session.
When the debate turned to gun violence, Walz laid down one of his biggest whoppers, where he accidentally stated he was “friends with school shooters.”
Walz used the issue of gun violence to discuss his and Kamala’s call for banning popular semi-automatic sportsmen rifles, despite his other statement that he didn’t want to ban people’s ability to own guns. Then he dropped a doozy…Walz stated that he and Kamala are both gun owners and that they both hunt. We have yet to hear about Kamala’s gun ownership or see any pictures of her ever hunting.
As the debate progressed past the first commercial break, Walz started finding his groove and the debate became more of a pleasant exchange of ideas. In many instances, Walz was nodding along with Vance and even mentioned he was in agreement with Vance on some of the issues.
There was an important exchange between Vance and Walz on the threat to democracy. No surprise – Walz regurgitated the same old talking points about Trump and January 6th being the largest threat to democracy. Vance hit back hard by going after Walz and Biden/Kamala’s statement and records against the First Amendment, which in his view is the most fundamental rights under democracy.
Both candidates scored big with their respective bases in the exchange. Who knows how undecided viewers will view that segment.
Vance was easily the better debater between the two. But these debates aren’t necessarily about who won the substance of the debate. They are more about the impression the candidates left. Other than Walz shaky start and whopper of a misspeak, there wasn’t much of a victor last night…nor will this debate really make much of a difference in the election.
Selfishly, as someone who has lived under the reign of Tim Walz’ anti-freedom governance, I was upset to not see three major issues brought up last night. First, Vance never went after Walz on his COVID lockdowns, business shut downs or vaccine mandates. Secondly, Walz never had to answer about the passage of a law that allowed transgender surgeries for minors as young as 6 years old. And lastly, Walz’s numerous stolen valor instances were never highlighted last night.
